If your task were to cut shingles, you would start with an original pattern shingle and make all your cuts from that original. Failure to do so would cause you to end up with shingles of many different sizes. In the same vein, whenever someone has something printed, the best quality is achieved by working from the original. Blurred and indistinct images occur whenever copies of copies are made.
How closely are we duplicating our Christianity from the Original?
We are exceedingly fortunate that we have the Bible as our reference point. 1 Peter 2:21 shows that our example is Christ, and we “…should follow His steps.”
If we take the steps of our lives in this way, then we have assurance that we can enter the “narrow gate” spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 7:14.
He also added these sobering words in this same verse: “…difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Isaiah faced similar challenges in his time. In fact, he was inspired by God to prophesy of our days — the climatic and unparalleled end of this age. There is a significant key to the task he faced that was given to him by God’s pointed warning: “for the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and INSTRUCTED me that I should not walk in the way of this people…” (Isaiah 8:11).
Isaiah was further instructed to fear and obey God. That was how he would be able to not drift over into the path of those who were in rebellion against the true God. We face the same deadly challenge.
How close you and I are to Jesus Christ and His explicit pattern of living can be measured by how much we all walk in the way of this people. Modern society is racing headlong into catastrophe, and we must never let down in the very difficult and ongoing battle to walk as Christ walked.
In the end, when Jesus returns to establish God’s supreme rule and authority, an amazing promise will find its fulfillment in our lives: “…but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2).
In the meantime, we all have much to accomplish, individually. Let us all be careful to NOT walk in the way of the people of this age, but let us carefully follow Jesus Christ — the true Original!
